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El Fishawy Coffee Shop
Cairo, Egypt—For more than two centuries, this smoky, mirrored café has been an inviting respite within the labyrinthine tangle of the 14th-century Khan el Khalili bazaar. Beneath checkered archways and tin lamps, wobbly brass-topped tables teeter under the traffic of steaming glasses of mint tea, dark coffee, and apricot-flavored shisha tobacco from hookah pipes. In this hazy atmosphere, Nobel Prize–winning Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz sipped his way to inspiration.
Photograph by David Silverman, Getty Images

Classic Cafés

The barista may call the shots, but history takes the (coffee) cake at these classic city cafés.

December 8, 2010
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